| January 5, 2001 | $1.2 Million Recovered In Fund Scam | More than $1.2 million bilked from investors has been recovered by federal officials and will be returned to the fraud victims. A U.S. Customs Service investigation resulted in a court order this week directing the Church of Scientology to return $1.2 million donated by Dennel Finance. The church returned the funds to a receiver and has not been accused of any wrongdoing, authorities said. | |
| November 19, 1985 | $12,000 Spent On Scientology Course: Suit | A Montreal stockbroker who claims he was brainwashed last year by members of the Church of Scientology testified yesterday that he paid $12,000 to the sect for personality courses. Gilles Lanthier told the court that he began having doubts about the sect when he was told to abandon his wife and seek further Scientology instruction in Toronto. | |
| December 31, 1997 | $12.5 Million Deal With I.R.S. Lifted Cloud Over Scientologists | The Church of Scientology paid $12.5 million to the Federal Government in 1993 as part of a settlement with the Internal Revenue Service that granted tax-exempt status to the church and ended a long and bitter battle with the agency. The payment was part of a landmark agreement, whose details had been kept secret until yesterday, that saved the church tens of millions of dollars in taxes and provided Scientology with an invaluable public relations tool in its worldwide campaign for acceptance. | |
| December 7, 1986 | 16 Scientology Offices in Italy Shut After Raids | Raids were conducted in 20 cities, including Milan, Turin, Florence, Rome, Genoa and Naples. The last one was yesterday, when police shut down a recently opened Scientology office in the eastern town of Macerata. The office of Milan investigating magistrate Guicla Mulliri said the raids were part of an investigation into possible physical abuse, fraud, violation of labor laws and tax evasion. The U.S. government has long contended that Scientology is not a religion and should not be exempt from taxes. | |
| April 9, 2000 | 2 Judges, 2 Counties, and a Lot of Baloney | How to explain the mental nose dives of the medical examiner and the chief circuit judge when they were confronted with the story of the slow, miserable death in 1995 of Scientologist Lisa McPherson at the Fort Harrison Hotel? This is the part I gag on: The Internal Revenue Service gave Scientology the tax-exempt protection of a religion. If what they do at Scientology headquarters in Clearwater is a religion, then I'm a planet. Saturn, say, rings and all. | |
| January 23, 1980 | 2 Leaders In Britain Still To Face U.S Court In Conspiracy Case | Testimony before a U. S. District Court in Washington said FBI raids on offices of the Church of Scientology in 1977 were specifically in search of evidence of conspiracies to steal government documents and obstruct justice. The FBI agents found it, the court was told. Much of the evidence was in the reports of the cult's spies planted in jobs in strategic offices, and in the files that they stole. Thousands of seized documents that helped convict nine U. S. Scientologists named as conspirators also gave the court evidence of other crimes and clandestine activities. | |
| November 27, 1980 | 2 Scientology Aides Guilty Of Burglary | Two high-ranking members of the Church of Scientology were convicted of burglary charges in what Federal prosecutors have called a widespread scheme by the church to infiltrate Government offices and steal documents. The two church members, extradited earlier this year from England, were accused of ordering subordinates in Washington to infiltrate offices of the Internal Revenue Service and the Justice Department in an attempt to copy or steal documents. Last December nine other members of the church, including Mary Sue Hubbard, wife of the church's founder, were found guilty of obstruction of justice and sentenced to prison terms in connection with the same alleged scheme. | |
| October 14, 1986 | 20-Year-Old Gives Narconon $10,000 Check | A 20-year-old man who said his housecleaning business has made him a millionaire presented a $10,000 check Monday to Narconon, a Los Angeles drug rehabilitation program. Minkow said he has ordered all 330 people employed by his company to take drug tests. Several workers, including a manager and a member of his board of directors, resigned, saying the test violated constitutional rights, he said. | |
| January 14, 1987 | 26th Person Picks Up Filing Papers | Bob Cetti, a technician in the production department at WTSP, Ch. 10, picked up papers Tuesday to run in the March 10 Clearwater elections. Cetti said he is a member of the Church of Scientology and would like to "get involved in trying to get government out of church affairs." | |
| November 21, 1988 | 40 Scientology Leaders From 7 Countries Detained in Spain | Forty leaders of the Church of Scientology from seven countries face charges of extortion, forgery and tax offenses after police raids, a judicial source said today. Police also shut down 26 of the group's offices across Spain on Sunday and seized bundles of documents. Charges against the church include falsification of public documents, extortion, tax evasion and capital flight. | |
| January 1, 1987 | 6 Ex-Scientologists File $1-Billion Suit Over Funds, Secrets | Former members of the Church of Scientology filed a $1-billion class-action lawsuit against the organization Wednesday, accusing its late founder, L. Ron Hubbard, and a cadre of his most trusted aides of plundering church coffers, intimidating critics and breaching the confidentiality of sacred confessional folders. The action, charging fraud and breach of fiduciary responsibility, represents perhaps the broadest condemnation of the church to date. | |
| April 17, 1986 | 6 Teachers Balk, Fired Over Scientology Book | Six teachers at a Park Ridge Montessori school were fired yesterday after refusing to use books designed by Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, school officials said. The teachers, described as "veterans" of the 16-year-old school, held a meeting protesting the Hubbard materials and also warned parents about the Hubbard book, Bowes said. | |
| March 29, 1989 | 75 Scientologists Go On Trial Today | Seventy-five members of the Church of Scientology's Italian operation go before a Milan court to face a long list of charges ranging from fraud, extortion and tax evasion to the illegal practice of medicine and taking advantage of incapacitated people. | |
| October 9, 1979 | 9 Scientologists OK Conviction So They Can Appeal | Nine leaders of the Church of Scientology, in a rare legal maneuver, have agreed to be found guilty by a federal judge on reduced charges of conspiracy and theft as an outgrowth of their long battle with the federal government over allegedly stolen U.S. documents. | |
| November 12, 2007 | A Church Accounting | While religious institutions have constitutional protection against certain taxation, they are also expected not to abuse their special status. In fact, while Grassley is looking into such matters, he should add the Church of Scientology to the list. Scientology's shameful past includes a 25-year legal and psychological campaign against the IRS to be recognized as a tax- exempt religion. Scientology tactics included a criminal conspiracy in the 1970s to bug IRS offices, which led to 11 convictions of church members including founder L. Ron Hubbard's wife. Scientology filed dozens of lawsuits against the IRS, hired private investigators to dig up dirt on IRS employees and financed other IRS critics. | |
| October 22, 2006 | A New Word in Literacy - Scientology | Scientology started classes at its Washington Street literacy center with a grand opening that offered free food and sidewalk chalk for children. The church members who staff the literacy center, in a storefront marked with bright-yellow "Boston Scientology Ministry" signs, say they wanted to do something about the increase in violence in Boston, which they attribute in part to poor education. Salon owner Helen Roy said people on the block have noticed the Scientology center but many won't walk inside. | |
| October 25, 1998 | A Place Called 'Gold' | Seven hundred Scientology workers put in 60-hour weeks to: remaster the scratchy tapes on which the late founder once recorded his lectures; translate his words into more than 30 languages; produce Scientology films, tapes, videos, television commercials, magazines and books; and manufacture e-meters, the electronic devices used in the core Scientology counseling practice called "auditing. | |
| October 1, 2006 | A Punk's Life | At 14 she divorced her parents. By 18 she was an Oscar-nominated movie star. Now, post-rehab and with a little help from Scientology, Juliette Lewis is back as a rock chick. Nick Duerden met her | |
| March 5, 1974 | A System of Engrams and Thetans | Scientologists perceive their system as a form of spiritual engineering. They make radical-sounding claims about their ability to revamp the ailing human spirit and personality on what is purported to be scientifically-based procedures. | |
| April 7, 2000 | A Visit from Scientology's Enemy Number 1 | Bob Minton was never a Scientologist. He began to get interested in the machinations of the sect when he read about the Lisa McPherson case on the internet. The young woman, who died, had apparently been locked up and starved by U.S. Scientologists. Scientology regards Minton as "Enemy Number One" - its arch-enemy. At his side sat Stacy Brooks, who worked in the "Sea Org" in the sect's headquarters and then left after being held against her will for nine months. | |
| January 24, 1984 | Ad Offers $100,000 In Check Mystery | A private investigator, acting on behalf of a West Coast law firm that represents the Church of Scientology, placed a full-page advertisement that appeared yesterday in The Boston Globe offering a $100,000 reward for information about a $2-million counterfeit check. Eugene M. Ingram of Los Angeles, the private investigator who signed the ad, declined to say whose account the forged check was drawn on because, he said, he wants to screen out crank telephone callers by asking for the name of the account. | |
| October 20, 1993 | Advertising: Church of Scientology to Launch Campaign to Improve Its Image | The Church of Scientology, having just won tax-exempt status after a bitter, decades-long battle with the Internal Revenue Service, is now ready to take on media critics in a major promotional campaign to try to mend its public image. The church has responded aggressively to its portrayal by news organizations in the past. After Time ran its cover story titled "Scientology: The Cult of Greed," the church ran expensive inserts in USA Today, in an attempt to discredit the Time story. | |
| April 12, 1996 | Again, Scientology's Secrecy Arouses Suspicion | Two decades after Scientology secretly started buying property and establishing its considerable presence downtown, there remains an enormous amount of mistrust about its goals and motives. Unfortunately, Scientology has no one to blame but itself for much of the criticism its leaders adamantly argue is unwarranted. Scientology's recent secret purchase of three small motels north of downtown Clearwater will heighten suspicion. That secretiveness reminds Scientology critics of how the church secretly started buying land 20 years ago under the name United Churches of Florida. | |
| January 21, 1990 | Akron Beacon Journal: A Tale of Capture and Brainwashing | A Medina dentist, Geary said he also nearly lost his 5-year-old practice,
and his wife wound up requiring hospitalization after allegedly being held
captive for more than two weeks by Scientologists in California. | |
| November 15, 2005 | Alarm In Prisons At Scientology Drug Cures Aimed At Inmates | The Prison Service has warned that activists linked to the Church of Scientology are targeting offenders in British jails with unauthorised anti-drug and education programmes. Narconon, the drug detox and rehab programme developed by Scientology founder L Ron Hubbard, and Criminon, his drugs education and rehab programme, are both being offered to prisoners through correspondence courses. Though officials frown on the programmes, they are unable to stop the practice because they cannot justify tampering with inmates' mail in these circumstances. | |
